Joyride's first reef

Joyride · 03-19-2008, 03:16 AM

I've been wanting to get back into aquariums for a while, and last year for my son's 3rd birthday I got a 28 gal bowfront freshwater aquarium. Of course, every time we would go to an LFS, he would ask me why we couldn't take home a "Nemo Fish", and each time I'd explain that our tank was FW and that the Nemo fish would die.

Well, a buddy of mine from work had a disaster in his reef last year. He had a 50 (ish) gallon cube aquarium that he'd setup as a reef and had kept it alive and flourishing for several years, and even moved it from Huntington Beach (CA) to Bakersfield (CA) without losing any livestock. However, when he was out of town on vacation, a contractor that was doing work on his house noticed that the water level was low, so he added a bunch of tap water to top the tank off. (It's okay to feel the punch in the gut, I sure did) Pretty much everything died in the tank. All of the corals, fish, inverts, everything except one particularly hardy clownfish. Realizing that it would take a tremendous amount of time and money to restore the tank, my friend took the whole thing down and put it into his garage.

Earlier this year, he and I were talking about my desire to start up a SW tank, and he said I could have the tank and all of his accessories (stand, hood, skimmer, lighting, chemicals, additives, etc.) if I just drove up and picked them up. After convincing my wife to allow another tank into the house, I borrowed a friend's minivan (no way it would fit in my Prius) and headed to Bakersfield with my son. When we were driving up, he asked where we were going and why. I told him we were going to my friend's house to get a tank. He asked, "can we put saltwater in this one, please???" When I said yes, he was thrilled.

So, I got all of the stuff loaded into the mini van and headed back to Costa Mesa (where I live). The tank was in serious need of cleaning as my friend had emptied the water and live rock, but left the sand and skeletons of critters that were in the sand at the time of the crash. When I got home, I got busy cleaning everything up and seeing what worked, and what didn't. I also started planning my plumbing.

My friend had run the tank with LR, a Remora hang on back skimmer, and a Fluval canister filter. I decided that I wanted to put in a sump and also wanted to try and work in a fuge as well, but that hasn't worked out due to space constraints.

Before you ask, I wussed out and didn't drill the tank. I should have. Really.

I got a hang on the back overflow and a (not so) Quiet One 2200 pump to return the water to the aquarium.

Then I lost my mind. The noise. The gurgling. The head banging against the wall. Holy Crap. I had the thing in my garage running FW and it was driving me insane. (Did I mention that I should have drilled the tank?).

Back to the internet I went and I tried all sorts of things and nothing was working. I was about to call defeat and spend (what I thought would be) hundreds of dollars getting the tank drilled, when I found the Durso Standpipe site, and in there is a picture of someone who modified an external overflow to work like a Durso. I tried that and it mostly worked. Enough that I decided to bring the tank into the house.

I bought some Live Rock, Live Sand, and a bunch of premixed SW. I know I can mix it myself, but at $3 for 5 gallons, I decided to just splurge and get the prefab stuff and save the energy that I would have spent mixing.

Into the tank everything went and it's going pretty well.

Here are the photos so far...

Cloudy tank:

Clear tank on day 1:

My Sump (protein skimmer not in the photo, but it sits on the back wall of the sump, with the powerhead submerged)

Signs of life starting to appear on day 9: (is the green guy calerpa?)

More signs of life on day 11: (is this some sort of sponge?)

Brown algae bloom in full force on day 11:

Joyride · 03-19-2008, 03:17 AM

This past weekend, I added four hermit crabs and four snails from the LFS to go after the brown algae. After a couple of hours of acclimation, I dropped them into the tank and within seconds, the crabs were partying down on the brown algae. I really wish I had taken before and after photos.

Here's the same rock from the last picture on Day 11 that I took tonight (day 18): (sorry about the focus, point n shoot cameras are hard to manual focus)

Here's one of the hermit crabs:

My other regret is that I didn't get photos of my overflow assembly before putting the tank up against the wall. Here's an overhead shot I took that should give you some idea:

My challenge right now is that I'm still having problems with the overflow. I'll detail those in another post.

***lReef lKeeper*** · 03-19-2008, 11:42 AM

that is looking outstanding !! i love the cube tanks, they are perfect for "nemo" and anemone tanks (i ma sure that your son would LOVE that).

**JustDavidP** · 03-19-2008, 12:51 PM

OMG... a newbie with a cluebie

Welcome aboard Chris! That is a sweet system. I JUST ordered, and will be picking up my 56 gallon column tank this week. I believe that it is the same tank as yours!

I like the idea of modification on the overflow. If you could point us to that thread where you found the concept, that would be great.

I like the Hydor pump that you are using. I have the same in my bowfront and LOVE it.

Your "greens" do look like caulerpa stems. The pink looks to be foraminiferans. Check this article out: Foraminiferans by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com However, they have a little clubbed end that has me excited thinking it may actually be an SPS coral, Montipora Digitata. Can't tell just yet, because the "scale" or size is deceiving in the picture, but watch it, and let us know how it is growing.

Nice diatom bloom

You already see the signs of it clearing, and noting that you are educating yourself into the hobby, you are probably aware of the fact that it is a normal part of cycling up a new system.

I am really looking forward to watching your project develop. I've subscribed to this thread. Again, welcome aboard. Please do continue to visit and by all means, pass along any other info you dig up. It's all about the sharing my friend!

Dave

**CarmieJo** · 03-19-2008, 09:42 PM

I like the way you've aquascaped. Nice pix of your hermit. They are always fun to watch.

Skurvey Dog · 03-20-2008, 12:41 AM

Hello Joyride

I'm glad that you were able to get the tank and that your son really wanted a marine tank! He will really enjoy watching it come alive before his lil eyes. I enjoyed your pics to take us on your journey so far and look forward to your future progress. Welcome aboard!

Joyride · 03-20-2008, 01:09 AM

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and kind words. It's nice to have some support on this stuff.

I also just posted a thread over in the Marine Tank Problems area about my overflow challenges. Here's the link: Gurgle, Gurgle, Flush - Problems with my overflow

Dave,
You asked about my green growing thing. Interestingly, it isn't looking all that great at the moment and is not looking as well as when I took the first picture. A the tank has been cycling, I haven't had the lights running at full intensity, but after I noticed a couple of days ago that my greenies were looking a little thin, I set all of the lights to come on during the day. We'll see what happens.

Thanks again,
-Chris

microbius · 03-20-2008, 06:49 AM

Nice setup

looks like a recipe for a beutiful reef tank to me

**JustDavidP** · 03-20-2008, 10:49 AM

Chris,

The macro algae is probably dying off as a result of your cycle and the transport of the live rock. No worries. In all actuality, if you think you want a "reef", you're better off without it. It is invasive and a pain in the butt to keep under control. It will be everywhere in short time. If you like the look of a marine "planted" tank (though they are not true plants) then you could try and foster the growth of the macro algae, but you'd end up pruning it from time to time.

The tank is too small for a tang, but you could figure out other natural ways to introduce herbivores that will make a quick dinner of the macro, and rid your system of it.

By the way, are the tank dimensions for your system 30X18X24? I'm interested in knowing if we have the same system.

Dave

Joyride · 03-20-2008, 11:43 AM

Tank dimensions are 24" wide, 24" tall (the front pane of glass is 24" square) and 18" back.

I am hoping to introduce a herbivore to control the macro algae as the tank is on a tall stand and is pretty tall itself, with the top edge being just under 6' off the floor. It's kind of a pain to get into it to get things on the bottom. Better to have something in the tank that eats that stuff, I think. If you look at my flower gardens at my house, you'd see that I'm not the best at weeding.

Joyride · 03-21-2008, 03:58 AM

I think I've solved my gurgling issue. Read more about it in my thread dedicated to the gurgling issues.

Here's the link: Gurgle, Gurgle, Flush - Problems with my overflow

Joyride · 03-22-2008, 11:38 PM

Things are progressing nicely. I took some more photos yesterday to share with everyone.

This first photo is of some greenish stuff that's growing on the rocks. I'm not sure if it's an algae or something else.

This next one is of the same rock as above that had the calerpa(?) growing on it around day 9. Whatever it was started to look a little wilted, then disappeared. Not sure if it was eaten by a crab or just died. The red (hopefully coraline) algae seems to be coloring in nicely.

This next one is another that I'm not sure what it is. It's similar to the first photo in this post, but completely pale in color. Anyone have any ideas? Am I just looking at the rock itself?

Here's another on that looks like kind of the same stuff

One of the hermit crabs happened to be posing right in front of the tank, so I snapped this one:

Joyride · 03-22-2008, 11:48 PM

I had a rough time yesterday with my overflow and the noise associated with it. To the point that I came pretty close to throwing in the towel and just using powerheads in the tank, an HOB skimmer (which I already have), and putting the heater into the DT.

I know I'm going all OCD, but the noise coming from the overflow was starting to drive me freakin insane. I finally got it to a more reasonable level by putting a valve on the output of the return pump and closing it off some to restrict the flow. I starting to question my DIY intelligence, as this seems like a totally solvable problem.

I'm also trying to decide what to do about my protein skimmer. I've go an HOB Remora skimmer that my friend gave me, but I've got a couple of problems with it.

1. The plastic is opaque and I can't see inside to determine if the bubble size is correct.
2. When I hang it on my sump, the water coming from the skimmer has a 6" fall to reach the water level in the sump, making more noise AND more bubbles that end up in the DT. Not cool. For a while I was running it with one of those filter socks like I've got on the water intake into my sump, but I removed it because I got to thinking that over time it would become a nitrate factory.

So, now I'm looking for skimmers and am open to suggestions. I need to keep the cost below $150. My total (actual) water volume in the tank and